Howdy Folks! New-bert here

[loosemoose]

Hey Everyone,

My name is Tony and I'm new to the site and to smoking meats.  A little background about me, I live in Charlotte, NC but am origionally from PA.  I'm an environmental scientist for a consulting firm and have been living in the CLT area for about 4 years.  I was a line cook for about 10 years before I finished school, so I have a pretty decent cooking background.  As for my grill I have a Char-Griller Duo with the side fire box.  I'm pleased to make all of your aquaintances. 

Does anyone have the Char-Griller Duo?  I tried a test run a few days ago with the SFB and smoking some brats.  I used charcoal and soaked mesquite chips in water.  I got the charcoal started and got them nice and hot and added them to the SFB.  I let them go for a while and checked the temp on the built in grill thermo and it was around 170.  I opened the vents to try and get some more temp and it reached about 200.  That was as hot as I could get it.  This was the first time I have tried smoking anything.  From the reading I've done temps should be between 200 and 250 but I could barely get mine to 200.  Does anyone have some tips or tricks?  I feel like I'm missing a step or something.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

[SmokinAl]

First of all welcome to SMF.

There are several guys here with your smoker & there are various smoker mods. Just go to the search bar & type in Char-Griller Duo mods. & I'm sure some of those guys will be along shortly.

 

[tyotrain]

Welcome to SMF.. lots to learn here and great people as well

 

[jjwdiver]

Welcome Tony!  As mentioned above there will be plenty of opportunity to learn new tricks and find out ways to get your setup working to it's full potential.  Glad you found the forum!  Enjoy and one rule of thumb is to include a camera into your arsenal - we love seeing what you're up to. Q-view is king here!!!

 

[beer-b-q]

 

Welcome to SMF, Glad to have you with us.
 

This is the place to learn, lots of good info and helpful friendly Members.
 

For those of you new to Smoking, be sure to check out Jeff's 5 Day Smoking Basics eCourse.

Click Here it's "FREE" ... 5 Day eCourseE

 

[bmudd14474]

Welcome to SMF.

 

[loosemoose]

Thanks for the greetings everyone! 

@SmokinAl, thanks for the info, I will definitely check out the mods and see what I can do. 

@jjwdiver, What is Qview?  I will be sure to post some pics in the future. 

 

[Dutch]

Get yourself an oven themometer to place on your rack, they are fairly cheap- I paid $4.00 for one from my local grocery store. Most themometers that come on those smokers aren't very reliable-they can be off as much as +/-50°. If you want a permenat fix, go to any of the on-line BBQ stores and get a "Tru-tell" thermometer to replace the ones on your CG-Duo.

 

[loosemoose]

Thanks Dutch!

 

[fpnmf]

Welcome!!

  Craig

 

[meateater]

Welcome to the SMF. Glad to have you here. Lots of good folks, great recipes and knowledge. Looking forward to your first qview.

 

[alblancher]

Don't own your type of smoker but the things that go into smoker temp are

Amount of Fuel

Amount of Air

Location of food to the burning fuel

Heck you knew that so my questions are

Where the firebox dampers fully open? 

Where the smoke stacks fully open

Did you have enough dry fuel burning

I know you didn't cover the briquettes with wet mesquite chips until you built your temps.

How old was the fuel, did it hang around in a wet garage for a while before using

We normally get the smoker to temp of at least 300 before loading with meat and allowing to moderate to the 225 range

Welcome to the forum,  maybe we can start here to try and give you a hand?

Al

 

[ellymae]

Welcome to the party Moose - where in PA you from?

I am wondering the same thing - were your exhause vents wide open? Was your fire up off the floor of the firebox? You need to be able to get good air flow going.

Qview = pictures... we love pictures -

 

[porked]

You might want to try getting a charcoal basket and use lump charcoal..it burns hotter and has less ash. Or, you can always use straight wood to get the temp up. Just sayin'..

 

[loosemoose]

Just stopping in to say howdy again.  I smoked some ribs this weekend and had much better results. Once I get the pics downloaded from my phone I'll make a thread and post a bunch of pics and go through my process.  This time was much smoother and the ribs were delicious.  Thanks for all of the help and greetings.  I think I've been bitten by a smoke bug, lol!

@ellymae I'm from Erie origionally but I had to escape the winters lol